Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice: How Neutralization Theory Can Inform Reid Interrogations of Identity Thieves

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how theoretically driven research can be beneficial to law‐enforcement personnel in their day‐to‐day jobs. Such information can be used as an educational tool to assist students in understanding the value of theory and research and its applicability in the field. Specifically, we show how research guided by neutralization theory can be used by police to better elicit confessions from guilty suspects when using the Reid interrogation technique. Using data from 59 federally convicted identity thieves, we provide an illustration of how interrogators can use this information to develop functional themes during the interrogation.